In recent days, there has been a truly frightening articulation of the US administration’s perception of Israel vis-à-vis the Muslim world.

In recent days, there has been a truly frightening articulation of the US
administration’s perception of Israel vis-à-vis the Muslim world. On Friday,
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta essentially blamed Israel for its own “increasing
isolation,” urging the Jewish state to reach out to its neighbors.

He
suggested that Israel make diplomatic inroads with the Muslim Brotherhood’s
Egypt, Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s increasingly Islamist and anti-Israel Turkey, and
vulnerable Jordan, a country whose leadership – for the sake of
self-preservation – has been making concessions to its own Muslim
Brotherhood.

And when asked at the end of his speech at the Brookings
Institution in Washington what operative steps Israel could make to advance
negotiations with the Palestinians, Panetta said: “Just get to the damn
table.”

In other words, the clearly exasperated Panetta believes that if
only stubborn Israel would make more concessions to the Palestinians, regional
animosity toward Israel would miraculously evaporate after decades of
incitement.

Just two days before Panetta made his disturbing comments, US
Ambassador to Belgium Howard Gutman, the son of a Polish Holocaust survivor,
basically blamed Israel for Muslim anti-Semitism in Europe.

Thankfully
the White House later distanced itself from Gutman’s speech, made to a
conference held by the European Jewish Union. Nevertheless, Gutman had carefully
thought out what he said in advance. This was no slip.

First, he noted
the “significant anger” and “yes, perhaps hatred and indeed sometimes an all too
growing intimidation and violence directed at Jews generally as a result of the
continuing tensions between Israel and the Palestinian territories and other
Arab neighbors in the Middle East.”

But instead of denouncing Muslims who
attack European Jews because Israel stubbornly insists on defending itself in,
say, Operation Cast Lead – a military incursion into the Hamas-controlled Gaza
Strip to stop rockets and mortar shells fired at Israeli civilians – Gutman
attempted to understand these outbursts of violence as a legitimate reaction
and, therefore, fundamentally different from “traditional” forms of
anti-Semitism.

Though one man was talking about Muslim perceptions in
Europe and the other focused on Muslim political leadership in the region, both
Panetta and Gutman had one thing in common: a maddening insistence on mixing up
cause and effect.

No, Mr. Panetta, Israel’s isolation has not deepened as
a result of anything that it has done (besides existing). In Turkey, in the Gaza
Strip, in Tunisia and now in Egypt, governments have been voted into power – in
democratic elections – that have, or soon will, pursue foreign policies
exceedingly antagonistic toward the Jewish state.

After all, what
interest would any Arab country in the region have in strengthening ties with
Israel at a time when its citizens, given the chance to choose, are expressing a
distinct preference for a particularly fundamentalist, illiberal and
anti-Western – not to mention anti-Israel and anti-Semitic – strain of Islamic
leadership?

What Panetta should have said – and didn’t – was that in light of
the increasing hostility directed toward Israel by an increasing number of
Muslim states in the region, the US reaffirms its commitment to Israel’s
security.

And Mr. Gutman, the hundreds of attacks on innocent European
Jews perpetrated by Muslims purportedly in response to Israel’s settlement
policy in east Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria or in response to its attempts to
defend itself through military means are no less irrational than any other type
of anti-Semitism.

Just as Jews such as Gutman’s father were not
responsible for the sort of anti-Semitism directed at them during the Holocaust,
so, too, is it unfair to point to Israeli policies as triggering Muslim violence
against European Jews.

As in the US, the number of anti-Semitic attacks
in Western Europe outweighs anti-Muslim attacks, even though Muslims make up a
significantly larger population. And a large percentage of those
anti-Semitic attacks are perpetrated by Muslims. In contrast, the number of
anti-Muslim attacks perpetrated by Jews is negligible, if they exist at
all.

The sorts of views held by Gutman and Panetta are, unfortunately,
not uncommon. But it is more than just unfortunate when these views are held by
men who have a critical influence on US foreign policy. It is downright scary,
especially in light of Israel’s growing need for American support as radical
changes sweep the region.

Sites Of Interest

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